Tracking your taxdollars: Overtime pay

There are government
employees nearly doubling their salaries by working overtime – and you're
paying for it. We found out some of the top earners all work in one place.

There are some employees
at the Collier County Sheriff's Office who have almost doubled their salaries
by pulling extra hours, fielding 9-1-1 emergency calls.

"Are we paying more overtime
than we would like to? Because we're short of personnel? Yes, explained Captain
Roy Arigo.

The NBC2 Investigators
found the top five overtime earners cost nearly $250,000 last year alone.

Captain Arigo says those employees fill in during peak hours only, not working
a full shift.

"Sometimes we need you
at four in the morning, sometimes we need you at 11 at night. Some people have
that flexibility where they can just leave at a moment's notice and come in and
do some overtime," he said.

One employee has topped
the overtime list all three years. He took his $60,000 a year salary and added an
additional $55,000 in overtime pay in 2011.

But the work isn't
child's play.

Arigo says constant calls for help can be stressful - leading to consistent
changes in personnel.

"It's something that the
average person doesn't hear on a regular basis," he said.

There is a group of
employees going through training right now, which would bring the department to
full staff. But we're told with so much turnover in dispatch, the sheriff's
office will never be able to do away with paying employees overtime.

"We need people on a
regular basis because people do it for awhile and they basically move on to
something else," Arigo said.

The setup allows the
county to only pay for extra hours - saving the cost of a benefits package that
comes with adding an extra employee.

"Well they're probably
doing that to save from paying people more benefits or whatever, so maybe it's
a good thing in that aspect," said Collier resident Jeff Macie.

Ultimately, officials we
spoke to say they're keeping the dispatch floor fully staffed in case you
should ever need to call for help.